ජනාධිපති ක්රමය හා ඇටිකෙහෙල්
Comparing the executive presidency to seeded bananas, tasty but hard to digest, Ivan recalls N.M. Perera’s warning that the 1978 system would produce crises once president and legislature diverged. He traces the Premadasa impeachment attempt and Wijetunga’s restraint, then argues that Chandrika Kumaratunga’s arrogance towards her ministers and the opposition, capped by Rauff Hakeem’s dismissal and the prorogation, has trapped her and may pit a hostile new government against her.
Other side of executive presidency
The President called the 1978 constitution ridiculous and went on enjoying the privileges of the system it created, without even reforming away its contradictions. She is paying for that now.
නීතියේ අනාචාරය
Ivan revisits the adultery case chemical engineer Jayasekera brought against Sarath N. Silva, then an Appeal Court judge. He shows how complaints to K. Palakidnar, Presidents Premadasa and Wijetunga went nowhere, how District Judge Upali Abeyratne’s handling of the case drew disciplinary charges that stalled once Silva became Attorney General and Priyantha Perera joined the Judicial Service Commission, and how Abeyratne was later punished lightly and promoted.
පෙරමුණේ අවංකභාවය උරගා බැලෙන පරික්ෂණයක්
Ivan calls the JVP–PA probation pact a test of the JVP’s maturity and honesty. Its claimed gains are hollow: the referendum was dropped because of public protest, and Parliament was brought forward only a day, perhaps because astrologers deemed the 7th inauspicious. Quoting the PA’s 1994 manifesto, he shows the pledge of 20 ministers covered all ministers, and warns that the pact’s ‘mutually agreed amendments’, a presidential nominee on the Constitutional Council and resistance to reviewing office-holders could deform the 17th Amendment.
A test for JVP’s sincerity
The probationary programme agreed between the PA and the JVP will be decisive for both the PA and the UNP, and more decisive still for the JVP — because everything it does in this period will show its political maturity, its capacity to act on firm principle, and its honesty.
දෝෂාභියෝගයක් කැඳවා ගැනීම
Ivan compares how Presidents Jayewardene, Premadasa and Wijetunga handled Parliament, noting that Wijetunga let the narrowly elected People’s Alliance govern after 1994. President Kumaratunga, with the weakest parliamentary base of all, ruled more harshly than Jayewardene, and her treatment of Rauff Hakeem turned the government into a minority. By proroguing Parliament without telling the Cabinet as a no-confidence motion loomed, and floating a referendum, he argues she is inviting an impeachment backed by two-thirds of MPs.
Possible scenarios after no-faith motion
With the political crisis where it is, the need for an all-party government dominates the discussion. The question that comes next is how the PA’s own members will act if the government is defeated on the no-confidence motion.
විශ්වාසභංගය හා ඊට පසු
The editorial says the PA’s fall is inevitable, driven by the call for an all-party government for reform, though S.B. Dissanayake is pushing a UNP-SLFP national government instead. It calculates that even if the JVP and Sihala Urumaya abstain the government could fall with three defections, predicts that the EPDP and CWC would then back any new government, and foresees a showdown in which Parliament, like that against Charles I, could curb the presidency unless the President behaves like D.B. Wijetunga.
Democratising a rotten system
The political system has fallen so low that reforms are now demanded not only by political parties but by civic organisations. What is on the table — the commissions, the media provisions, the end of the rule that costs an expelled member his seat — and what it would take to get agreement on it.
රාජ්ය ප්රජාතන්ත්රීය කිරීම
Ivan surveys reform proposals from parties and civil society: the UNP’s four independent commissions, the JVP’s call to abolish the executive presidency and for a state media commission, and the Alliance for Democracy’s conditions for reforming the presidency, on dissolution, appointing the Prime Minister and Cabinet, expulsion of MPs and emergency powers. He adds the Editors’ Guild proposals on criminal defamation, freedom of information and an independent Press Council, citing Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe’s dual roles.